Farmer1906 said:

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codker92 said:

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Farmer1906 said:

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codker92 said:

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KingofHazor said:

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Faithful Ag said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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One of the most important aspects of biblical tradition going all the way back to the beginning of Israel is the written word, which is infinitely superior to oral tradition in its ability to preserve and transmit wisdom over time.

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I appreciate your post and perspective, but I would challenge this statement fundamentally. Throughout history, Judaism has always held Oral Tradition as being authoritative and binding on the believer alongside Scripture - not subservient to it. It has always been both/and, and was never an either/or proposition. Oral Tradition was authoritative and binding on OT and NT Jews, and this was even attested to by Jesus himself in the NT. The Jews passed down their Traditions from generation to generation with great zeal, effort and care.

Scripture was not and never has been "infinitely superior" to Oral Tradition. This belief is a Protestant invention, is foreign to both Jews and to ancient Christians, is unbiblical, un-historical, and it is wrong.

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Any support you can provide for that? That's the first time I've heard that.

To be clear, you're contending that all ancient Jews viewed oral tradition as having the same authority as the Torah? That the view of them as being "people of the book" was only a Protestant invention?

I'm going to need a lot of evidence to buy that.

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Look you are forgetting Christs teaching. When Jesus entered the temple he took rode a colt to the temple to destroy it and wage war against it. Jesus fully intended to destroy the temple that day. But, the children shouted . Matthew 21:12-17 and Jesus decided to spare the temple for the sake of the children. This shows that the children's spoken word caused Jesus's anger to subside. He decides to keep the temple for the children's sake so they could speak the words of God orally. This shows Jesus did find oral tradition authoritative enough to save the temple.

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Where does it say he was intending to destroy the actual temple?

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It does say he rode a colt, a young male horse. A colt is a warhorse. Jesus rode horse of war into the town towards the temple. Once he arrived inside he threw over the tables started cleaning out the inside. The tables had engraved images on the money, which images were forbidden and considered unclean. The temple was not clean because of the images on the money inside it. The temple was vehicle for facilitating the violation of God's law. Therefore, Jesus sought to destroy it until he heard the voices of the children proclaiming God's law, and that subsided his anger.

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In this case the colt is referring to a young donkey which is not a warhorse. It calls back to when David rode a donkey to his coronation.

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You know I questioned that when I read your post. I'm far from perfect and could have read it wrong. But it's 100% referencing donkey.

Edit:reply fail.

Silent For Too Long said:

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When you traditionalists make your points, I often think to myself "people are perfectly capable of interpreting scripture on their own.." and then codker posts and I'm like "dang, they have a point."

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This made me laugh!! I'm glad you are beginning to come around. Hah!

Faithful Ag said:

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I will respond in more detail when I am able and have a little time…But your assumptions and interpretations are heavily influenced by your modern, Protestant interpretive traditions. I would say your premise and conclusions are flawed.

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What are my assumptions?

Aren't you having to "assume" what my assumptions are?

What are my premises? My conclusions since I didn't state any?

Silent For Too Long said:

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The Bible is the memetic bedrock of everything in every Christian persuasion. Your Traditions are based on the Bible.

If the Bible lacks any authority at all Christianity crumbles.

To your point though I should say hyper Biblical literalism has its own pitfalls. I think its wise to understand the Bible wasn't suppose to be a scientific thesis. But it is suppose to be taken seriously.

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I would like to point out that evangelicals are particularly susceptible to attack of the bible, because they don't have a historical church that is preserving these teachings, writings, and offering up sacraments as more fundamental bedrock expression of the Christian faith. Because the church came before the bible.

Not to say I don't enjoy these things, but its not a matter of collapsing all of christendom if Luke/Mark/Matthew is off on the reason why Mary and Joseph had to go Egypt. This doesn't call into question the entirety of the bible because there is the inheritance of the church. I will admit I took way more interest in them when I was an evangelical than I do now.

You have enough to work out your salvation. God did not abandon His Church, there are miracles being performed all the time. St. John Maxomovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco had is face shine with light multiple times during liturgies. He is a saint. You (all of us) can become the same.

one MEEN Ag said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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The Bible is the memetic bedrock of everything in every Christian persuasion. Your Traditions are based on the Bible.

If the Bible lacks any authority at all Christianity crumbles.

To your point though I should say hyper Biblical literalism has its own pitfalls. I think its wise to understand the Bible wasn't suppose to be a scientific thesis. But it is suppose to be taken seriously.

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I would like to point out that evangelicals are particularly susceptible to attack of the bible, because they don't have a historical church that is preserving these teachings, writings, and offering up sacraments as more fundamental bedrock expression of the Christian faith. Because the church came before the bible.

Not to say I don't enjoy these things, but its not a matter of collapsing all of christendom if Luke/Mark/Matthew is off on the reason why Mary and Joseph had to go Egypt. This doesn't call into question the entirety of the bible because there is the inheritance of the church. I will admit I took way more interest in them when I was an evangelical than I do now.

You have enough to work out your salvation. God did not abandon His Church, there are miracles being performed all the time. St. John Maxomovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco had is face shine with light multiple times during liturgies. He is a saint. You (all of us) can become the same.

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Your logic is circular. You keep proposing contested issues, such as "the church came before the Bible", to support your contested issues.

KingofHazor said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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The Bible is the memetic bedrock of everything in every Christian persuasion. Your Traditions are based on the Bible.

If the Bible lacks any authority at all Christianity crumbles.

To your point though I should say hyper Biblical literalism has its own pitfalls. I think its wise to understand the Bible wasn't suppose to be a scientific thesis. But it is suppose to be taken seriously.

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I would like to point out that evangelicals are particularly susceptible to attack of the bible, because they don't have a historical church that is preserving these teachings, writings, and offering up sacraments as more fundamental bedrock expression of the Christian faith. Because the church came before the bible.

Not to say I don't enjoy these things, but its not a matter of collapsing all of christendom if Luke/Mark/Matthew is off on the reason why Mary and Joseph had to go Egypt. This doesn't call into question the entirety of the bible because there is the inheritance of the church. I will admit I took way more interest in them when I was an evangelical than I do now.

You have enough to work out your salvation. God did not abandon His Church, there are miracles being performed all the time. St. John Maxomovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco had is face shine with light multiple times during liturgies. He is a saint. You (all of us) can become the same.

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Your logic is circular. You keep proposing contested issues, such as "the church came before the Bible", to support your contested issues.

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If you can't even acknowledge that the Church predates the Bible then I don't think there's much left to discuss because that is ahistoric.

KingofHazor said:

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one MEEN Ag said:

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Silent For Too Long said:

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The Bible is the memetic bedrock of everything in every Christian persuasion. Your Traditions are based on the Bible.

If the Bible lacks any authority at all Christianity crumbles.

To your point though I should say hyper Biblical literalism has its own pitfalls. I think its wise to understand the Bible wasn't suppose to be a scientific thesis. But it is suppose to be taken seriously.

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I would like to point out that evangelicals are particularly susceptible to attack of the bible, because they don't have a historical church that is preserving these teachings, writings, and offering up sacraments as more fundamental bedrock expression of the Christian faith. Because the church came before the bible.

Not to say I don't enjoy these things, but its not a matter of collapsing all of christendom if Luke/Mark/Matthew is off on the reason why Mary and Joseph had to go Egypt. This doesn't call into question the entirety of the bible because there is the inheritance of the church. I will admit I took way more interest in them when I was an evangelical than I do now.

You have enough to work out your salvation. God did not abandon His Church, there are miracles being performed all the time. St. John Maxomovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco had is face shine with light multiple times during liturgies. He is a saint. You (all of us) can become the same.

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Your logic is circular. You keep proposing contested issues, such as "the church came before the Bible", to support your contested issues.

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I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say. The church (who is Israel) was formed by the apostles and a wave of israelites (and gentiles) who recognized Jesus was the Messiah of the OT. There was a 40 year period where christians shared synagogues with israelite groups who did not think Jesus was the messiah. The current liturgy is basically the pattern of what the first century synagogues used with the addition of the trappings of communion (which is heavily influenced by the temple sacrifice practices as well).

The church was a visible organization with buildings and sacraments from the get go. Scripture came into focus under the authority of the church and after the church established its daily, weekly, seasonal life and sacraments like baptism and communion.

So on one hand, scripture issues about NT aren't circular. But scripture issues in the OT could be more circular, but the OT didn't fall from the sky either. It came from a people group with scriptural authority. Even within the OT it says if you want to know more about X king, go read the annals of the kings. Which is to say that the OT isn't a viewpoint from knowhere, objective accounting of history across its every facet. The kings that are important to the OT are generally small players when we look at historical evidence of Israel from outside groups.

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If you can't even acknowledge that the Church predates the Bible then I don't think there's much left to discuss because that is ahistoric.

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What do you mean by "the Church"? I assumed he/you meant the RCC. It certainly doesn't predate the Bible.

But if you mean the body of all believers when you say "the Church", then that church may predate the written Bible since the first books were written a few decades after Christ's resurrection.

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There was a 40 year period where christians shared synagogues with israelite groups who did not think Jesus was the messiah. The current liturgy is basically the pattern of what the first century synagogues used with the addition of the trappings of communion (which is heavily influenced by the temple sacrifice practices as well).

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Genuine curiosity: how do you know all that to be true? I've read similar claims, but I've always been fairly skeptical since what we actually know with certainty about 1st century Christianity is sparse.

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The church was a visible organization with buildings and sacraments from the get go. Scripture came into focus under the authority of the church and after the church established its daily, weekly, seasonal life and sacraments like baptism and communion.

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Again, how do you know that to be true? What buildings and which sacraments (other than those specifically mentioned in the NT) were practiced "from the get go"? What do you mean by that second sentence? All historical records show that the early church relied heavily on the Pauline letters and the Gospels immediately after they were written without any formal imprimatur or "authority of the church".

KingofHazor said:

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If you can't even acknowledge that the Church predates the Bible then I don't think there's much left to discuss because that is ahistoric.

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What do you mean by "the Church"? I assumed he/you meant the RCC. It certainly doesn't predate the Bible.

But if you mean the body of all believers when you say "the Church", then that church may predate the written Bible since the first books were written a few decades after Christ's resurrection.

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The "R" in the the "RCC" is a pejorative created by Anglicans during the reformation that has made it's way into modern lexicon as it were the official title of the Church. It is not. The Catholic Church is just that...the Catholic Church.

And the Catholic Church most certainly predated the Bible. Acts 1 is the Catholic Church. ACTS 15 is the Catholic Church. Paul telling Timothy that he is charge of an entire region is the Catholic Church. The didache explaining what it means to be a Christian and outline moral and liturgical norms is the Catholic Church. Pope Clement (mentioned by Paul in Phillipians) telling laypeople they are not allowed to depose the Presbyters that would validly installed by apostles or successors of apostles is the Catholic Church. It's the same Church with Bishops that Irenaeus (taught by Polycarp who was taught by the Apostle John) described.

The Church absolutely predates the bible. That's why so many letters in the bible are addressed to "the Church in _______"

KingofHazor said:

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If you can't even acknowledge that the Church predates the Bible then I don't think there's much left to discuss because that is ahistoric.

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What do you mean by "the Church"? I assumed he/you meant the RCC. It certainly doesn't predate the Bible.

But if you mean the body of all believers when you say "the Church", then that church may predate the written Bible since the first books were written a few decades after Christ's resurrection.

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Yeah, your definition of church is inadequate because it fails to reflect the meaning of the Greek word ecclesia, and "ecclesia" as used in Matthew 16 and 18 by Jesus and by Paul in 1 Timothy 3. It means the one, holy Catholic and apostolic church established by Christ, that Paul refers to as the pillar and foundation of truth.

Koine Greek had multiple words for groups of people, and ekklesia was deliberately narrower than "crowd" or "gathering." Standard lexical works on the New Testament era confirm this precision: according to Thayer's lexicon it was "an assembly of the people convened at the public place of council for the purpose of deliberation," and Bauer's lexicon defines ekklesia as an "assembly of a regularly summoned political body." Colin Brown's theological dictionary sharpens this further, noting that ekklesia was "clearly characterized as a political phenomenon, repeated according to certain rules and within a certain framework... the assembly of full citizens, functionally rooted in the constitution of the democracy."

This is precisely why the earliest Christians reached for this particular word rather than a cultic or purely religious term. As one study on ekklesia's usage notes, there is insufficient evidence to argue there was ever a cultic use of the ekklesia in the Greek world, as it denoted predominantly civic bodies and the New Testament authors chose to avoid a cultic or religious term and instead chose a "secular" one.

Christ did not select a soft or sentimental word when He said, "I will build my ekklesia" (Matthew 16:18). He reached into the vocabulary of Greek civic governance a term connoting a legislative, deliberative, authoritative body with real jurisdiction over its members and applied it to the community He was founding on Peter. This is clear in Paul's first letter to Timothy where he clearly refers to a real, corporate entity that has rules, authority and governance. This is not incidental. It signals that the Church Christ established was never meant to be a loose spiritual sentiment or merely a community. It was meant to be a governed body, possessing real authority to teach, to bind and loose (Matthew 16:19; 18:18), to adjudicate disputes (Matthew 18:17; 1 Corinthians 6:1-6), and to speak with juridical weight an organized, hierarchical assembly with apostolic officers (bishops, presbyters, deacons) exercising genuine administrative and doctrinal authority, exactly as the Athenian ekklesia exercised civic authority over its citizens.

This is why the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church has never functioned merely as a loose community of independent congregations, but as a single governed body under apostolic succession councils, canons, and a magisterium that binds consciences. The political pedigree of the word points directly to the structured, authoritative nature of the institution Christ established.

The New Testament itself preserves this civic-administrative meaning in Acts 19, when a riot breaks out in Ephesus over Paul's preaching, the town clerk calms a mob by reminding them that grievances belong in the proper legal channel and Luke uses ekklesia three times to describe that formal, legally-constituted body. These occurrences referred to a meeting of craftsmen who had been called together by Demetrius into the town theater to decide what to do about Paul, and this is an example of ekklesia used to refer to a regularly summoned political body with legal standing which is precisely why most English translations render it "assembly" or "lawful assembly" rather than "church" in that passage.

All that took place long before there was a "Bible", which is no sooner than the early 4th century.

The Church was founded in Matthew 16, but the decisive moment of the Church's birth is Calvary and Christ's total self-giving for salvation, a self-gift anticipated in the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper and fulfilled on the Cross, where blood and water flowed from His pierced side. What was founded on the Cross was revealed and empowered fifty days later at Pentecost with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when the Church was manifested to the world. This is the moment the ecclesia goes public, receives her mission, and begins to preach the Gospel to every nation (Acts 2:1-41). This is why Pentecost is traditionally called the Church's "birthday" in her visible, missionary form, even though her foundation was laid earlier in Christ's words and definitively in His Paschal sacrifice.

So whether you're referring to the "Bible" (4th century) or one or more of the writings that would later be included in the canon of Scripture (no earlier than ~57 AD, all of those post-date Pentecost.

Man, all you guys keep stating your conclusions as arguments.

Is history an argument?

FIDO95 said:

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I'm not sure if you watched the video but they actually discussed the points you are making. They used the analogy of how "do you know Thomas Jefferson was real and not a construction of several different people to advance an agenda?" Larsen discusses this predicament from the lens of how it is addressed by a historian. It was a very informative part of the interview.

The talked about the postmodern idea of being hyper skeptical about everything and basically leaves you with nothing to believe in. Practically nothing is 100% certain in regard to historical events. People can't even agree on 9/11 and that occurred in our lifetime. At some point you have to have faith that the information you are given is more likely to be true.

Something that I learned that is apparently coming down the pipeline... Apparently serous scholars, even the atheist ones, have accepted the existence and crucifixion of Jesus. There are too many independent (outside the Bible) accounts to deny it. So now, they have moved their attention on Paul and stating he never existed and his letters are all forgeries. The nonsense never seems to end. Perhaps you are right, it's time to stop arguing with people who can not see.

"4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that [b]they will not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." -2 Cor 4:4

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something about pearls and swine?

KingofHazor said:

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There was a 40 year period where christians shared synagogues with israelite groups who did not think Jesus was the messiah. The current liturgy is basically the pattern of what the first century synagogues used with the addition of the trappings of communion (which is heavily influenced by the temple sacrifice practices as well).

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Genuine curiosity: how do you know all that to be true? I've read similar claims, but I've always been fairly skeptical since what we actually know with certainty about 1st century Christianity is sparse.

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The church was a visible organization with buildings and sacraments from the get go. Scripture came into focus under the authority of the church and after the church established its daily, weekly, seasonal life and sacraments like baptism and communion.

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Again, how do you know that to be true? What buildings and which sacraments (other than those specifically mentioned in the NT) were practiced "from the get go"? What do you mean by that second sentence? All historical records show that the early church relied heavily on the Pauline letters and the Gospels immediately after they were written without any formal imprimatur or "authority of the church".

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Have you read Acts? If not, I'd start there.

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The talked about the postmodern idea of being hyper skeptical about everything and basically leaves you with nothing to believe in. Practically nothing is 100% certain in regard to historical events. People can't even agree on 9/11 and that occurred in our lifetime. At some point you have to have faith that the information you are given is more likely to be true.

Something that I learned that is apparently coming down the pipeline... Apparently serous scholars, even the atheist ones, have accepted the existence and crucifixion of Jesus.

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Scholars have accepted that Jesus existed as a person for centuries at this point. The "Jesus myth" camp was never large and never well supported. Nor is there some large group of people arguing Paul didn't exist. That doesn't mean they accept the narrative Paul presents of himself or that Acts is written during or immediately after Paul's life.

Postmodernism holds that what we see and know of the past is based on narrative constructs that are contingent to the author. This is fundamentally true. It's even true of archeology where there is survival bias of material and interpretive bias based on the experiences and expectations of the archeologist. Everything we have of the past is based on texts written from a specific perspective or material that offers a glimpse of the whole. The further back you go the more likely it is that those texts are advancing a narrow view that deliberately omits pertinent information. Making declarative pronouncements about individuals or events with such information may serve the needs of your current narrative but says little about the reality of the past. That said, there are plenty of poststructuralists who go too far and are more interested in modern politics than recovering what we can of the past. And I personally do think you can recover a working understanding of much of the past through available sources, though this is never going to be wholly accurate (with the caveat that making claims about ancient world is really, really fraught given how poor the sources are). These poststructuralist tools and critiques have penetrated the zeitgeist well enough that I see right wing folks and religious folks use these kinds of arguments to discount evidence that doesn't suit their narrative.

Good post. Would you agree that the only two paths available to post-modernists are:

1. Nihilism
2. Raw power/authoritarianism

Really good posts. You can toss hedonism and unbriddled luciferianism into that mix.

Word!

one MEEN Ag said:

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FTACo88-FDT24dad said:

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Good post. Would you agree that the only two paths available to post-modernists are:

1. Nihilism
2. Raw power/authoritarianism

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I don't know if those are the only two paths available. Self loathing, depression, despondency and then suicide are also available.

But a post modernist has basically rejected:
-Their own historical culture
-Their religion
-Man and woman being defined as having separate roles and duties to society

They are primed to be formed solely by their passions and outside malevolent forces. Which then follows that society descends into consumerism, vice, and degeneracy.

I've yet to meet an atheist who is an ascetic.
Or a technology-free post-modernist.

People who believe themselves blank slates and that their is no God will collectively descend into some form of government worship and or naked power grab. Because there only is this life so who cares about committing atrocities on your quest to get what you want.

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Sounds a lot like modern day liberalism.

Because they are practically the same.